Hello and welcome to Brexit Republic RTE's podcast on Brexit.

I'm Tony Connolly, RTE's Europe editor in Brussels.

I'm Sean Whelan, RTE's London correspondent in Westminster.

And I'm Colomomungine, RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor, normally in Dublin, but currently at home in Kildare.

Each week, Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels, London and in Dublin but currently at home in Kildare. Each week Brexit Republic assesses

all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels, London and in Dublin. This week British and

EU officials get up close and personal in Brussels with the first face-to-face negotiations on

the future relationship since early March. But by all accounts, the new format did not deliver any magic.

We'll assess what went wrong and where to from here, especially since Britain's chief

negotiator David Frost has his mind on other things.

And we'll take a look at a troubling issue that's lain dormant since the referendum,

a UK land bridge issue, and what Brexit will mean for Irish trade flows to the

continent via the port of Dover, once Britain leaves for real at the end of this year.

So, Tony, the first week of face-to-face talk sounded rather like one of those dates where people

meet in a place where it's easy to get out of if things go wrong. It did go wrong.

Yeah, so they met in Brussels for the first time, column since early March.

This time, instead of a hundred negotiators coming over or 100 officials from London,

there were only 16. And the reason for that was that these were the heads of the clusters of officials who are tackling the

different subjects in these negotiations. We have 11 what they call columns altogether. So instead of

having a whole bunch for each column, they had just one head for each column and a few other officials

coming over so that they would be able to try and work in a more intimate,

more focused way with their EU counterparts.

...